by Mary Balogh
"Most people, once they have tasted the waters," she said, "are wise enough to decide that they prefer the infirmities with which they are comfortably familiar. Actually bathing in the waters, of course, is somewhat out of fashion. No, Joshua, one comes to the Pump Room each morning, not for one's health, but in order to see and be seen. It is the thing to do when one is in Bath."
"Like promenading in Hyde Park when one is in London," he said, vaulting out of the carriage as soon as the door was open and setting down the steps himself before handing his grandmother down. "Except that that is done at teatime, a far more civilized hour than the crack of dawn."
"Ah, that hint of early autumn," she said, pausing on the step and inhaling the air. "My favorite season-and my favorite time of day."
She was dressed with consummate elegance-as was he. When in Bath one must do what the Bathians did, he had concluded yesterday. And that meant participating in all the tedious public displays that were so much a part of the daily routine here, starting with the early morning stroll in the Pump Room.
He wondered if the dark-browed little virago would be here. If so, he would discover who she was-as she would discover his identity. That might lead to interesting developments. At least his morning would not be dull if she was here-even if she chose to give him the cut direct.
She was not there. But a whole host of other people were, and large numbers of them had not yet been introduced to him. He felt like someone masquerading as a grand hero as people converged on his grandmother to congratulate her on having her grandson to stay with her, and remained to be presented to him. He resigned himself to smiling and conversing and exercising his charm.
He grimaced inwardly when he saw Mrs. Lumbard bearing down upon him. She was one of his uncle's neighbors in Cornwall, and one of his aunt's bosom bows. She had never had the time of day for him while he was growing up at Penhallow, especially after, at the age of ten or so, he had taught her daughter a swearword he had learned in the stables and she had used it in her governess's hearing. He had been even farther beneath her notice as a carpenter. Now she was approaching him, all heaving bosom and ample hips and nodding bonnet plumes, like a ship in full sail, that same daughter in tow, and sank into a gracious curtsy.
"Lady Potford," she said, addressing his grandmother though she was looking at him, "how very gratified you must be to have Hallmere with you at last. Such a handsome, distinguished gentleman he has grown into. Has he not, Petunia, my love? And I remember the time when he was such a dear mischief." She simpered at her own joke. "My dearest Corinne used to weep tears of despair over him. My dear Hallmere, I suppose it is too much to hope that you remember me?"
"I remember you well, ma'am," he said, bowing. "And Miss Lumbard too. How do you do?"
"We are both tolerably well," Mrs. Lumbard replied, "if I ignore a few twinges of the rheumatics, which are always at their worst this time of year. But I never complain. How very kind of you to ask. My dearest Corinne will be beside herself with delight when she knows I have seen you. Every day she expects you to come home. She is quite pining for a sight of you."
Joshua thought it altogether more likely that his aunt was holding her breath in the hope that he would never come, even though she had written more than once recently to invite him home. It had struck him as faintly amusing that the letters had been phrased just that way-as gracious invitations to his own home. She need not fear. She was welcome to live out her life there undisturbed by him.
He inclined his head stiffly to Mrs. Lumbard.
"Ah," she said, suddenly distracted, "there are Lady Holt-Barron and her daughter and Lady Freyja Bedwyn. I simply must go and pay my respects to them. Come along, Petunia."
Joshua offered his grandmother his arm again and prepared to stroll onward. But he glanced in the direction of the new arrivals and stopped abruptly, his lips pursed.
Well! Here was something to enliven what had promised to be an intolerably dull morning. Here she was.
She was dressed today in a russet walking dress and bonnet and looked tamer than she had yesterday. She also had a look of bored hauteur on her face as if, like him, she would far prefer to be somewhere else altogether more lively.
"Who is the lady-" he began to ask his grandmother.
But the lady in question caught sight of him even as he spoke. She held his gaze, her eyes growing noticeably more steely despite the distance between them.
And then he heard the echo of what Mrs. Lumbard had just said-and Lady Freyja Bedwyn.
That prominent nose went up in the air and with it the aggressively set chin. The green eyes grew arctic.
Joshua was already enjoying himself.
"-in russet with the two other ladies Mrs. Lumbard is approaching?" he asked, completing his question.
"Lady Freyja Bedwyn?" his grandmother asked, following the line of his gaze. "Lady Holt-Barron has been displaying her all over Bath since she arrived a few days ago, like some sort of trophy. Which is, of course, what I will be accused of doing with you."
"Lady Freyja Bedwyn?" he asked.
The woman was tapping an impatient tattoo on the floor with one foot. She was taking no notice at all of Mrs. Lumbard, who was fawning all over her, but was still gazing narrow-eyed at Joshua.
"The Duke of Bewcastle's sister," his grandmother explained.
Uh-oh. Joshua grinned slowly and deliberately.
Lady Freyja Bedwyn was leaving her group without a word or a backward glance and was moving purposefully across the room with long, manly strides. The inappropriateness of her movements in such confined, genteel surroundings drew attention even before she came to a halt less than a foot in front of Joshua, glaring at him with what he could now correctly interpret as aristocratic disdain.
"Lady Potford," she said without taking her eyes off him, "would you be so good as to inform me of the identity of the gentleman who is with you?"
There was a brief silence, the only indication his grandmother gave of the surprise she must be feeling at this quite unmannerly demand.
"Hello, sweetheart," Joshua murmured, and thought that if Lady Freyja Bedwyn only had a chimney in the top of her head she might not look quite as if she were about to explode.
"Lady Freyja," his grandmother said with admirable poise, "may I have the honor of presenting my grandson, Joshua Moore, Marquess of Hallmere? Lady Freyja Bedwyn, Joshua."
She glared at him with flared nostrils, apparently quite uncowed by what she had just learned. He returned her look with amused admiration. By God, she did not mind making a spectacle of herself before a large audience of Bath society. And the buzz of conversation had indeed hushed considerably as heads turned to see what it was that was threatening to disturb the genteel routine of the morning stroll.
"I believe," Lady Freyja said in strident tones that must be carrying clearly to every farthest corner of the room, "he would be more appropriately named the Marquess of Hellmere." She pointed one kid-gloved finger directly at his chest. "This man does not even deserve the name of gentleman."
There was an audible gasp from all around them, followed by shushing sounds. No one wanted to miss a word of this delicious scandal that was developing before their very eyes.
"My dear Lady Freyja-" his grandmother began, sounding quite dismayed.
"This man," Lady Freyja continued, "likes to amuse himself by preying upon innocent, helpless women."
There was a swell of shocked sound followed again by more frantic shushing sounds.
"I do beg you, Lady Freyja-" His grandmother tried again.
Lady Freyja poked her finger, like a blunt dagger, into Joshua's chest.
"I warned him that I would discover his identity and expose him to Bath society for the villain he is. I vowed I would have him ejected from the society of decent people." She poked him with her finger again. "If you thought I was bluffing, my man, you were sorely mistaken."
"Again," he said, smiling sheepishly and calculating that the expression would furt
her enrage her. "I really ought to know better by now, ought I not?"
There was no further pretense of anyone's strolling. Even the water tables had been deserted. Joshua realized that he and his grandmother and Lady Freyja Bedwyn had become isolated in the middle of a rough circle that had formed about them. Their audience seemed about equally divided between those who were acutely embarrassed that a lady should behave with such lack of decorum and those who gazed with hostile eyes at the man who preyed upon innocent, helpless women.
But someone was coming to their rescue-or to join the fray-a man with self-important air come to deal with the sudden crisis. Joshua recognized him as James King, the master of ceremonies at the Upper Assembly Rooms, who had called upon him two afternoons ago at Great Pulteney Street. It was the man's job to maintain Bath's gentility and see to it that every visitor was welcomed and properly entertained-and that every visitor kept the strict rules of decorum.
Even marquesses and the daughters of dukes.
"My lady," he said, addressing Lady Freyja, "surely you are mistaken. This gentleman is the Marquess of Hallmere and grandson of Lady Potford, a longtime resident of our city. Perhaps this slight misunderstanding can be cleared up quietly outside?"
His voice was courteous, but it held a thread of steel. He took Lady Freyja by the elbow, but she shrugged him off and looked at him along the length of her nose as if he were a worm.
"This slight misunderstanding?" she said with haughty emphasis. "A peer of the realm assaulted a poor serving girl on a lonely stretch of lawn in Sydney Gardens yesterday despite her piteous screams for help and was about to drag her off into the bushes to complete his wicked designs on her while I witnessed all, and it is a slight misunderstanding? It is something to be hushed up discreetly beyond the confines of this room? I do not believe so. This matter will be cleared up here and now and before the respectable citizens of Bath. Have the courage to perform the duty for which you are employed and expel this man from Bath without further ado."
There was a smattering of applause from the gathered spectators.
Joshua grinned at Lady Freyja, who was looking magnificent enough to be a queen of the Amazons. He even made a slight kissing gesture with his lips.
Mr. King sighed and turned his attention to Joshua.
"Do you have anything to say on this matter, my lord?" he asked.
"Yes, indeed," Joshua said. "The lady has a vivid and lurid imagination."
She looked at him with haughty contempt. "I might have predicted," she said, "that you would deny it all."
"Did you see Lady Freyja in Sydney Gardens yesterday, my lord?" the master of ceremonies asked.
"Most certainly I did," Joshua said. "She was alone and wearing a dark green walking dress with a feathered hat. And she punched me in the nose."
There was another gasp from the spectators, followed by a buzzing, followed by the inevitable shushing noises.
Mr. King looked pained.
"For nothing at all, my lord?" he asked. "You expect us all to believe that she struck you, a stranger to her, for no reason whatsoever?"
"She came rushing upon me when I was holding a serving girl in my arms," Joshua explained. "Probably she had heard the girl scream a few moments before. She appeared to have concluded that I was about to-ahem!-have my wicked way with the wench."
"But you were not, my lord?" the master of ceremonies asked.
In the short pause Joshua allowed to fall before he replied, he could see the suddenly arrested look in Lady Freyja's eyes, the dawning realization that perhaps she had made a ghastly mistake. That she had just made a prize ass of herself, in fact.
"A squirrel had stepped into the girl's path as she crossed a lawn in the park," Joshua explained. "It startled her and she stopped abruptly. But instead of bounding away as any sensible squirrel would have done under the circumstances, it attempted to take refuge under her skirts and she screamed. By the time I hurried to the rescue, having witnessed the whole catastrophe, the poor girl was hysterical, though the squirrel had long ago recovered its wits and made off for the nearest tree. I, ah, gathered her into my arms to steady her."
He had, of course, been about to kiss her too, with her full and enthusiastic compliance, but there was no need to add those incriminating details.
"It was at that moment," Joshua added, "that Lady Freyja Bedwyn rushed onto the scene, frightened the poor serving girl into screaming again and taking flight, and punched me in the nose."
Mr. King transferred his gaze from Joshua to Lady Freyja. So, Joshua estimated, did everyone else in the Pump Room.
"Could this be the explanation of what you witnessed, my lady?" he asked.
To do her credit, she did not crumble or look as if she were searching the Pump Room floor for a deep hole to crawl into. Neither did she bluster or make a further idiot of herself by trying to insist upon the truth of her story. Her eyes narrowed and she continued to stare haughtily at Joshua.
"Why did you not explain all this to me yesterday?" she asked imperiously.
"Now let me see." He lifted one hand and stroked his chin with his thumb and forefinger. "I asked if I might be permitted to explain, and you replied to the effect that you knew perfectly well what you had seen and what you had heard. You added, I believe, that you were not stupid. It would have been quite ungallant of me to contradict you."
There was a titter from some members of their audience.
Her eyes grew steely again. "This was deliberate," she said. "You led me into this quite deliberately."
"I beg your pardon for contradicting a lady." He made her an elegant half-bow. "But I believe it was you who approached me this morning."
"It would appear," the master of ceremonies said, raising his voice slightly, looking about him with genial affability, and speaking with firm finality, "that this altercation has been over a slight misunderstanding. We must have you shake hands, my lord, my lady, so that all will see that there is no remaining rancor between the two of you."
Joshua, with a deliberately courtly gesture extended his right hand, palm up. He smiled. He was enjoying himself enormously. He was very glad she had not collapsed into an ignominious heap of feminine mortification-that would have lessened his pleasure in besting her. Her nostrils flared again, her chin came up and with it that splendid aristocratic nose, and like a queen conferring a favor on some poor inferior mortal, she set her hand on his.
He closed his own about it and raised it to his lips.
Again there was a smattering of applause, and then everyone got back to the serious business of strolling and gossiping or-for the intrepid few-drinking the waters.
"I will get you for this," she murmured.
"The pleasure will be all mine, I do assure you, my lady," he murmured in return-and smiled at her with the full force of his considerable charm.
Lady Holt-Barron was so severely discomposed by the scene in the Pump Room that she was quite unable to go shopping after breakfast. Indeed, even her breakfast had to be reduced to dry toast and weak tea, the only items she thought herself capable of digesting. She retired to her room afterward to lie quietly upon her bed.
"Oh, dear," Freyja said to Charlotte when they were alone in the morning room, "I forget that there are ladies with such inconveniences as delicate constitutions. Ought I to apologize to your mama, do you suppose?"
But Charlotte had turned purple in the face and was attempting to stuff her linen handkerchief into her mouth. Nothing, though, would stifle the laughter that came bubbling out of her.
"Oh," she wailed, "if Mama hears me she will have a major fit of the vapors and we will end up having to send for the physician."
She stifled further whoops as best she could.
"It might all have seemed like the farce at the end of the drama to you," Freyja complained. "I could cheerfully have died."
"If you could just have seen yourself," Charlotte said. "Stalking across the Pump Room like an avenging angel while all the dowagers gape
d after you. And then speaking to the marquess just as the headmistress at my school used to talk to us when we were in major trouble. And jabbing at his chest with your finger."
But the memories were too much for her composure. She spread her handkerchief over her face and rocked with merriment.
"He knew that I would do it," Freyja said, thinking with indignation of the grinning marquess, whose immaculate good looks had only fueled her wrath. "That was why he did not insist upon telling me the truth in the park."
"And if you could have seen Mama trying to make herself invisible," Charlotte continued, "and that horrid Mrs. Lumbard swelling to twice her size and Miss Lumbard's eyes fit to fall out of her head and-oh, everyone." She went off into whoops again.
"At least," Freyja said, "I have given everyone enough to talk about and write home about for a month or more. The letters will all be book-length, I daresay."
"Oh, don't!" Charlotte rocked back in her chair.
"The Pump Room is going to seem deadly dull forever after," Freyja said, "even to those who have never realized that it always is. They will all be looking to me for an encore. I will be famous."
Charlotte giggled.
"Actually," Freyja admitted, "I would have loved nothing better, Charlotte, than to have punched the Marquess of Hallmere in the nose again for leading me into that trap. But I really thought I had better not. Perhaps he will offer me some provocation to do it tomorrow."
She looked at her friend with a frown for a few moments before her lips twitched at the corners and she first chuckled and then laughed aloud.
He was a worthy foe. She must admit that much about him.
Lady Holt-Barron left her room sometime after noon, looking pale and martyred, though she smiled cheerfully and assured her daughter and Freyja that she was quite rested and had only the smallest of headaches remaining. She did not believe she would go out calling on anyone during the afternoon, though, and she did not advise the younger ladies to go out walking. She rather fancied it was going to rain, and they would both catch chills if they were caught out in it.
